New Year's Resolution is the latest UB Ninth Age team tournament hosted on the American Discord channel.
There are 42 teams of 5 players. For round 1, we were paired against Zbojcerze out of Poland with the scenario of Hold the Ground. As this is a good scenario for my army, my army got declined for pairing until the very end, just as we declined to pair against their dwarf army! So the big infantry armies would clash for hold the ground.
My list:
520 - Soothsayer, Raiding Chariot, Wizard Master, Shamanism, Light Armour (Trickster's Cunning), Hand Weapon (Ancestral Carvings)
450 - Soothsayer, General, Wizard Master, Druidism, Crown of Autocracy
305 - Centaur Chieftain, Shield, Heavy Armour, Hand Weapon (Hawthorne Curse), Obsidian Rock
250 - Beast Chieftain, Battle Standard Bearer (Legion Standard), Light Armour (Destiny's Call), Great Weapon
330 - 35 Wildhorn Herd, Shield, Standard Bearer (Legion Standard), Musician, Champion
325 - 3 Raiding Chariots
170 - 15 Wildhorn Herd, Shield, Ambush
95 - 10 Mongrel Raiders
633 - 32 Longhorn Herd, Great Weapon, Standard Bearer (Flaming Standard), Musician, Champion
451 - 14 Centaurs, Great Weapon, Standard Bearer (Flaming Standard), Champion
200 - 12 Longhorn Herd, Ambush, Great Weapon
140 - 5 Gargoyles
140 - 5 Gargoyles
490 - Gortach
4499
The dwarf list (played by Danrakh)
325 - Runic Smith, General, Shield, Rune of Dragon's Breath, Rune of Harnessing, 3x Battle Rune
285 - Thane, Shield, Battle Standard Bearer (Banner of the Relentless Company), Rune of Dragon's Breath, Rune of Mining
285 - Runic Smith, Shield, Rune of Dragon's Breath, 3x Battle Rune
195 - Anvil of Power
460 - 35x Clan Warriors, Great Weapon
460 - 35x Clan Warriors, Great Weapon
210 - 15x Clan Warriors, Paired Weapons, Standard Bearer, Champion
320 - 15x King's Guard
320 - 15x King's Guard
320 - 15x King's Guard
320 - 15x King's Guard
250 - 14x Forge Wardens, Musician
250 - 14x Forge Wardens, Musician
250 - Field Artillery, Dwarf Cannon
250 - Field Artillery, Dwarf Cannon
Pre-game thoughts:
- The ruin in the middle is a huge help for me, having the fewer units. I'm confident my big bricks can fight his one-on-one with druidism help. The moment he can get kingsguard on the flanks, it's all over.
- I took top for deployment. With his cannons and forgewardens, I don't think my shaman wizard and gortach will participate in this game until I can kill one cannon. They will hide behind the hill.
- One unit will ambush to put pressure on his cannons. The other will park behind the helpful ruin and score.
- I have previously played against a unit heavy list of DH similar to this and won by use of static CR and bouncing units of the board. I hope to do similarly here. I also did a brief test game of this exact list the night before and played aggressively with gortach and centaurs. It went extreeeeemly poorly... so I will be a little cautious with both those units here.
Deployment
We traded one unit a turn for deployment until it got near the end, where I dropped for first turn. Normally going second is advantageous for HTG, but here I think first is better. It allows me an extra turn for ambush/totemic summons and let's me get into position over the objective where I can try to bounce him off. I was hoping there would be a window where I could put the centaurs on a flank to push, but he was cagey to that and kept 1 unit of kingsguard back to counter them.
Otherwise, the two big blocks are on the left of the impassible. It was not possible to score on the right side. My little unit of wildhorns was directly above the impassible where they could score as well. I put gargoyles on both flanks as early drops to give options to go after cannons. No options were available, so they pulled back for use as chaff.
T1 BH
Both wildhorns and longhorns move up 10". Centaurs vanguard and move up a little on the right and they stay light troops. With the zoning kingsguard on the right, they do not have an opening to sneak into. Instead, I leave them in a spot to give charge options on the forgewardens next turn, or on another unit of kingsguard close to the impassible in case they move forwards.
Both wizards stay out of his -1 channel rune. Magic gets off totemic summon, which does 1 wound to a cannon. The summon is placed to prevent the forgewardens moving backwards, and within 6" of both cannons. It miscasts on 6,6,6 but fortunately does not kill the wizard (1 wound with trickster's cunning proving very helpful). I also try to put stoneskin on the centaurs but it fails to cast.
Shooting the hawthorne curse is ridiculously lucky and it kills 4 kingsguard. I hope I haven't used up its luck for the game...
T1 DH
The dwarf units left of the impassible do not move forwards and instead re-position for next turn. On the right, two units of kingsguard move up aggressively.
On the left, forgewardens kill 2 longhorns. On the right, they kill 1 centaur. One cannon misses but the other kills the totemic summon.
T2 BH
Turn 2 sees some early charges. The centaurs (flank) and chariots (front) charge the kingsguard sneaking past the right side of the impassible. The centaurs remain light troops for the inevitable counter-attack - I hope they kill enough to prevent steadfast!
In the middle of the board is likely the most pivotal moment of the game. His unit of clansmen (with BSB) has been left within a 9" SS of the big wildhorn unit. He forgot the SS rule for BH flank charges. They flee but without checking path, they are destroyed by the unit spacing of the cannon behind.
Both wizards again stay out of range of the channel -1 ruin. Magic again sees a single spell cast - stoneskin on the wildhorns in the middle to discourage a long counter-charge against them. It's also miscast (again) on a 5,5,5 and puts 2 wounds on my general wizard. Totemic summon is dispelled.
In combat, the chariots and centaurs barely squeak by against the kingsguard. The chariots and centaur chieftan kill a bunch but take 5 wounds in return. The centaurs whiff entirely and fail to hit a single one. Fortunately, the hawthrone curse crazy luck from the previous turn means they are below 5 models so break and run. I have two options for pursuit. I can go left and run up against the cliff but this has the danger where if I don't catch, I leave a scoring unit and chaff in front of me. I can go downwards, into the forgewardens and likely tie him up for a turn but will lose the centaurs to the kingsguard.
I elect to go left. At this point, the hawthrone curse luck runs out... and the 3 remaining dwarfs escape both the centaurs and chariots. They pass their DT's from the impassible. And then they rally... while decimated!
T2 DH
The kingsguard on right charge the centaurs, who flee up to the top left of the board, losing 5 to DT's. The BH are very lucky on panic checks, and the army stays firm.
Both his big units of clansmen with GW move up towards the middle. Shooting puts a few more wounds on the longhorns and the chariots from the forgewardens. Both cannons miss.
The BH score secondary with 2 scoring units to 1.
T3 BH
The big wildhorn unit charges and destroys the remaining three kingsguard. The longhorns charge the blocking unit of clansmen in front of them. This was a risky charge but I had gargoyles to chaff the left flank, and could position the wildhorns in such a way to chaff the right. I was hoping in druidism magic and eventually grinding them to death.
The centaurs rally and prepare to repeat their havoc on the left flank.
The ambushers come in, and I put them on the far bottom right corner to go after a cannon. I wanted them in such a spot where they were out of breath weapon range of both his characters (15"), so they could not go closer to the center.
In magic, both wizards remain outside 24" of the channel rune for the third consecutive turn. It's a better start for magic compared to previous turns and I get oaken throne and healing waters on the wildhorns. The previous turn, he had put revocation on the longhorns, so I needed the attribute from healing waters + throne to dispel it. This then left me with a 4 dice vs 4 dice attempt on stoneskin but it was unfortunately dispelled.
In combat, the longhorns prove their worth without magic and beat the clansmen. The clansmen flee and are destroyed by unit spacing. This was a somewhat unexpected result so I leave the longhorns where they are.
T3 DH
The remaining unit of clansmen charges the wildhorn unit. I don't recall why they did not charge the newly freed longhorns. Both runesmiths make their way to a flanking position for a subsequent turn, as do the remaining kingsguard units.
The forgewardens on the left do a stunning 8 wounds to the longhorns, leaving that unit pretty badly mauled. The forgewardens on the right do 3 wounds to the longhorns but they pass their panic check. Both cannons missed again I think. The gortach was really feeling confident in his choice to remain hidden now...
In combat, the clansmen with GW kill the back rank of wildhorns (healing waters proved very useful) but ultimately it's a tied combat with the wildhorns' rank bonus.
BH score secondary now 3 (longhorns are now in) to 1.
T4 BH
The ambushing longhorns charge and destroy the right-most cannon.
For the middle fight, there was some awkward spacing whereby the centaurs could not charge in to help the wildhorns because of the position of the longhorns in front. I don't recall what the longhorns did this turn... from the pictures, it looks like they stayed put!
However, as one cannon is finished both the gortach and the shaman wizard leave their hill, to threaten a unit of kingsguard.
The centaurs jockey to a better flanking position, and in shooting the chieftain does 1 wound to the general runesmith with Hawthrone curse.
In magic, the shaman wizard casts swarm on the remaining cannon, but it fails to do any wounds. I get one other spell which is another healing waters on the wildhorns. With healing waters, the wildhorns prove they don't need the support of other units and break the clansmen unit. This time I don't pursue as doing so would leave my flank exposed to a second unit of clansmen to the right. Because of the anvil behind, a roll of 9 or higher will destroy them. However, third time's the charm and this time the dwarfs stay on the board.
T4 DH and onwards
At this stage we had been playing for 5 hours. The game would stretch for another 2 (seven in total!). My brain was fried and I stopped taking pictures or notes. I don't remember too much of this final stage but in summary...
I got a little greedy at this stage and started to push downwards past the impassible with my two remaining wildhorn/longhorn blocks. This was not a good idea... and the remaining DH units did exactly as I predicted at the start of the game and flanked and beat both units, but could not catch either. Fortunately, I was lucky on flees/rally rolls and my points losses were not too severe. In hindsight, I probably should've have ran down the remaining big GW clansmen unit when I had the chance, and simply fled the counter-charges. However, I wasn't confident in passing panic checks without the BSB and the secondary wasn't locked down until the next turn.
For the supporting functions, the centaur chieftan had another shot at the general with hawthorne and did another 1 wound. The mongrels were embarrassed on his behalf and actually shot and finished him.
The gortach tried to charge some kingsguard. They fled from terror. He rolled 1,1 to charge and then took a second cannonball in the face. The cannonball hit on a 4, because the shaman wizard in that same turn failed to do any wounds with swarm for a second time. The gortach looked at the omens... and went and hide behind his hill again for the last turn!
The ambushing longhorns exceeded expectations and took a charge from the forgewardens and eventually ground them down over several rounds. They were then finished in the final round by the kingsguard who previously fled the gortach. Thanks gortach!
Final result 18-2
Closing thoughts
This game definitely went much better than I hoped for. The key moment was the BSB being chased off the board because of a mistake in flee path. With him nearby, I would not nearly have had as much luck in the combats with the longhorn and wildhorn units. Their ranks + healing waters were decisive but I was normally winning by 2-4 which is not great odds for dwarf leadership plus BSB. I feel a more "normal" result for this game might be an even tie at 10-10 whereby I think I can hold scenario (due to that very helpful cliff) but likely lose on points due to the forgewardens plinking wounds, or a unit of kingsguard eventually hitting a juicy flank. I was also very, very lucky on panic checks which is not normally a thing I say as a BH player...
That said, the longhorn and wildhorn units did exactly what I hoped for. They tanked damage from dwarf great weapons, killed a few dwarfs in return and used their ranks to bounce the dwarfs off the board. Their size and relatively long charge reach (for infantry) really helped with locking down the secondary (with the help of the cliff).
Forgewardens seem pretty amazing now. They did 300+ pts of damage shooting at the longhorns and only lost in combat because of some spectacular luck for the ambushing longhorns.
Magic was terrible which was disappointing for my 1000pts in two wizard masters. Except for 1 turn where I had throne + healing waters, every phase I only got 1 spell, and I had 2 miscasts this game (555 and 666). I think part of the reason may be the shaman wizard who had a chariot as a late addition to the list. I didn't predict his weakness to cannons which left him out of range for most of the game except for totemic summon.
The hawthorne curse centaur chieftan is something that I've never used before but I think it was very interesting. It gave options to snipe a key character which is something that BH don't have a lot of. The dice didn't pan out but it easily could have been a big benefit for small investment. Even better, he can shoot while he's getting ready to charge with his buddies which he would be doing anyway...
The gortach was another late addition to the list. Cannons, kingsguard and forgewardens are obviously a terrible match-up for him so he was pretty embarrassing here. With him and the shaman wizard (on chariot) hiding behind the hill, I basically played with 1000pts off the board... Hopefully they do better in the next game.